Social media turned conspiracy theories from distant abstractions into targets for direct harassment.

Evidence

The local element hasn’t disappeared, though; indeed, our communications have made conspiracism more intimate than ever. Social media allows us to fasten a conspiracy on a seemingly random or inconsequential person: the victim of a school shooting, say, or the owner of a pizza parlor. Self-appointed online detectives can use digital tools to contact, expose, harass, and occasionally terrorize the alleged plotters in ways that would have been impossible even twenty years ago. — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 73

Categorization

• XREF: Strengthens the shared-threat mechanism: conspiracy belief now produces direct harm to concrete individuals, evidencing the practical stakes of the vault’s prejudice-psychology claims. — connects to: As the world grew more connected, conspiracy theories shifted from local to distant targets. — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 72

Broader Connections

• As the world grew more connected, conspiracy theories shifted from local to distant targets. #complicates (0.78) — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 72